Black Sea Touch*****:With the release of his astonishing Endless Sunmmer (2001), Christian Fennesz boldly pushed the envelope for avant-garde electronic music.
The Austrian laptop composer's new album, his long-awaited follow-up to the extraordinary 2004 Venice, continues his path-finding journey away from the song- structured pieces of his early albums towards more dynamic and complex open-ended compositions, creating a unique and exceptional electronica. Combining warm digital noize (clicks, glitches, white noise), fractured guitar chords and sinuous polyrhythms with delicate melodies and smooth grooves, Fennesz' great art is to infuse distortion with an expressive warmth - and a rare beauty, particularly on the Black Sea 10-minute title track - and to imbue disruption (treated tones, mutated colours, fragmented melodies) with an exquisite lyricism. Black Sea is outstanding. www. touchmusic.org.uk
Download tracks: The Black Sea, Glide
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